Once again we would like to welcome you to our latest auction, Nomos 15.The coins and medals in this sale are
of gold, silver and various copper alloys; they range in date from the 6th century BC until the 18th century AD; they
were struck in mints that range geographically from the Netherlands to northwest India; and in size from a tiny
silver hemiobol of 0.27 g to a large silver medal of 94 g! Not only that, the coins come from collections in both
the US and all over Europe; some even have collecting histories going back into the 19th century!

The sale begins with a few Celtic pieces and then moves on to 197 lots of Greek coins: ranging from a silver
nomos of Nola in Campania (lot 5, est. 550.-, and from the White-King sale of 1909) to a tetradrachm of
Ptolemy VI (lot 202, est. 450.-) bought from Bank Leu in the late 1960s. Some especially interesting pieces are
lot 28, a lovely archaic tetradrachm of Syracuse (est. 10,000.); lot 50, a remarkable posthumous Lysimachos
gold stater with an unknown portrait (est. 6500.-); lot 62, a very rare tetradrachm of Philip II (est. 4500.-);
lot 87, a spectacular ‘prototype’ tetradrachm of Perseus (est, 25,000.-); lot 102, a very rare and attractive stater
of Delphi (est. 55,000.-); and, of course, there is lot 123, the spectacular Arkadian League stater from
Megalopolis (est. 180,000.-). And there are certainly many more Greek coins of interest!

Next come 114 lots of Roman and Byzantine coins, 2 medieval and 7 selected Dutch medals. One special piece
is an As struck by Sextus Pompey with a double-portrait of his father, Cn. Pompeius Magnus (lot 209, est.
4500.-): the quality of this portrait coin, which first appeared on sale in Basel in 1955, is astoundingly high.
Most unusual is the large (30 mm) tetrassarion from Aegeae in Cilicia with its portraits of Alexander the Great
and Julius Caesar (lot 219, est. 4250.-). A personal favorite is the fabulous sestertius of Diva Faustina II, which
shows the deified empress enthroned in the heavens (lot 256, est. 32,500.-) – the quality of the engraving is of
the highest. Lot 274, a sestertius of Julia Maesa, which was once in the collections of Maxime Collignon, E.G.
Spencer Churchill and others, has one of the finest of all numismatic portraits of this powerful woman (est.
5000.-); another bronze of beautiful quality is lot 287, the medallion of Probus from Leu 71 (est. 42,500.-).
Lot 312 is a great Byzantine rarity, a solidus of Nicephoros I minted in Syracuse in 802-803 (est. 7500.-).
Finally there is the extremely rare medal of the value of 4½ ducats from West-Friesland (lot 319, est. 15,000.-
): the only known example in gold (and very rare in silver), this was struck as a call to unity in the face of
dissension between the Dutch provinces.

We certainly hope that this extensive selection will prove attractive to collectors of all kinds.Download catalogue here

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Obolos 9 postponed to 25 March 2018 starting at 15:30 CET

We are terribly sorry but our computer system simply could not handle the overwhelming number of online bidders who tried to enter our site this Sunday afternoon. And so it crashed. It is really our fault for not anticipating the huge response to the sale: our computer technician has immediately fixed the problem, but we noticed that many members were unable to place their bids on the first lots. So, to our great embarrassment and regret, and to be fair to everyone, we will have to redo the sale, starting with lot 1 one week from today, on 25 March 2018 starting at 15:30 CET.

Over the next few days our site will be receive a complete upgrade of its capabilities and we can promise every one of you that these capacity issues will be completely eliminated.

Obviously, all the bids that arrived here prior to the site crash will be carefully retained and recorded for next week.

Once again, allow us to give you all our most profound apologies for this inexcusable system failure, which has certainly caused widespread disappointment for everyone, both customers and consignors. We will do our best to make it up to all of you.